Facebook: A Window To You
As college students you’re all aware that employers are using facebook more and more to research you before they decide to hire or interview you. However, this NYT article (contributed by Julie Geng via email) lays out the problems with clarity and intensity. Some of their examples will blow you away:
Ms. Rose said a recruiter had told her he rejected an applicant after searching the name of the student, a chemical engineering major, on Google. Among the things the recruiter found, she said, was this remark: “I like to blow things up.”
This is atypical of a college facebook profile. Usually, they tend more towards the following:
[E]xplicit photographs and commentary about the student’s sexual escapades, drinking and pot smoking, including testimonials from friends. Among the pictures were shots of the young woman passed out after drinking.
Students have a tendency to ignore the image their facebook profile creates to non-college students and recruiters:
“I never really considered that employers would do something like that,” he said. “I thought they would just look at your résumé and grades.”
However, according to the article, they have a different perspective:
“I was just shocked by the amount of stuff that she was willing to publicly display,” Ms. Homayoun said. “When I saw that, I thought, ‘O.K., so much for that.’”
Go read the whole article, and if you have a facebook profile that might be offensive, think about your future and censor yourself.
What are you reading?
I had a series of interviews with Rob Ochshorn of Kitsch magazine, culminating in the production of an article titled About a Blog: How Elliott Bäck has established himself as a serious news source for the Cornell community. When I read it, it feels like an ego-piece, but Rob’s done an excellent job of distilling the fact and fiction of my blogging experience in the Cornell community. Probably, the most interesting thing I said to him was “Where I do real good analysis only a handful read it.” With this blog in particular, I receive around a thousand readers a day and make $.50, yet it’s the place where every post I write is meticulously researched and written. There’s no place for “linkwhoring” on a University themed blog.
Just over halfway through the article, Rob quotes the former EIC of the Cornell Daily Sun, Andy Guess:
“It shows you what a citizen-journalist can do with just a computer and no other credentials whatsoever,” Guess said. Bäck’s ability to connect real people and events to their ephemeral online parallels can certainly add whole new dimensions a story, as in the cases of Pearlstone and Shorey, but some of Bäck’s most interesting posts combine his curiosity with his formidable computer science background.
That’s more or less what I do. I find that my actually being a Cornell student, aside from spurring my interest in the topic, has very little to do with what I write here, most of which comes from online investigation. And, that is a bit of a sad fact. If you’re a Cornell student with some campus pictures, a decently written and factual rant, or an opinion on the administration, you should send me an email and I’d be more than happy to publish you here. Even if you disagree with things I’ve written, I’m of the “more opinions the merrier” camp.
My personal favorite section is “Strong Response,” which details the controversial nature of what I write, and the responses I receive. From student deaths and sex offenders to slope day, it seems almost everything of interest to me offends someone at Cornell University. You’ll also find I’m not always right, either:
And when Bäck discovered and reported on the Slope Day performers, he also claimed to have discovered their set lists. In fact the songs he found were just songs that the artists were famous for, not songs to be performed, and his mistake was quickly pointed out in his comments first by a skeptical reader and then by the Vice Chair of the Slope Day Programming Board.
When I wrote about the official slope day bands, in my tired state I confused a suggested listening list with the lineup, and was quickly corrected. That’s exactly why I have comments–for when I screw up!
However, while there are hundreds of blogs by Cornell students, there are only a handful of blogs about Cornell. If you run a Cornell-related blog, or are a Cornell student with a blog and an RSS feed, leave a note in the comments. I’m thinking pulling together a 9rules-esque CU aggregator might be useful.
Two New David J. Skorton Interviews
The Cornell Chronicle has posted two new interviews with Cornell University president elect David Skorton. The first, a general interview, focuses on Skorton’s goals in communication with students, staff, and the press and his focus on the Arts:
“I think in general universities are places where one has to consult, where one has to cast a wide net for opinion.” He then paraphrased Cornell’s legendary historian Carl Becker, saying, “universities are places where one thinks otherwise.”
The second interview talks specifically about how he plans to enhance the Arts and Humanities at Cornell:
“Every research university in the country, whether or not originally a land-grant university, has that responsibility because we all get so much public money,” he added. “We get hundreds of millions of dollars in external funding, predominantly from the federal taxpayers; we get very precious support from the state of New York, and we get support from alums and friends and the students and their families. So we owe a giving back in all the disciplines we have on campus.”
While the two interviews are quite short, they are an excellent place to go to get a better feel for the personality of Cornell’s next president.
